The long anticipated Great British Sewing Bee makes! – The Walkway

Well, 6 projects in 6 weeks didn’t exactly go to plan. I made a project for each episode but wasn’t able to finish them in time to post alongside each episode. I did, however, do write ups for the Minerva Blog so you can get my insight into the competition there, along with some insider knowledge courtesy of myself and Vicki, the Minerva Sales Director.

So lets start where I left off, episode three! This tied together my two passions; Sewing and Vintage! The really interesting thing about the Walkway dress is that it was so popular Butterick actually stopped production of ALL other patterns and solely printed this to keep up with demand. I can tell you know, I’m pretty sure they did it again because the demand for this pattern was phenomenal! We had to get stock Air Freighted from the States to keep up with demand!

So here’s my effort

I went for a lovely Lemon yellow for my dress to try and channel the sunshine we weren’t getting in Lancashire at the time. I rocked a Lemon Yellow Polycotton for the front apron with a Lemon Yellow Crinkle Seersucker Polycotton for the rear back and skirt. I would definitely go for a poplin for the front apron next time as it would hold the weight of the rear portion of the dress better as that isn’t a paneled skirt, it’s a full circle! I also had to strengthen the bust darts with interfacing as they popped open! Luckily that happened in the fitting stage and not in Media City, Salford!

I made up a side 14 as the measurement suggested, but I ended up having to take the back darts in my about 1 cm each to help the shoulders fit correctly. I also did ties instead of buttons to fasten the apron at the back so I can wear it through various stages of weight loss or gain!

I really enjoyed making up the dress, but it’s tricky to wear! The front apron of the dress is only fasten around the back at the waist to the front raises up your legs like crazy, you HAVE to wear a slip with it. I’m going to experiment with weighting the bottom with some chain. I’ll let you know how it goes!

I’ve got another project to tweak for episode 4, Structure! That will be a great write up and is really shows what can go wrong when you rush!